Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) founder Ker­ron Clarke has made his first court ap­pear­ance in re­la­tion to two mon­ey laun­der­ing charges. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Clarke, of Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve, Phase One, La Hor­quet­ta, ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle yes­ter­day. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that one charge re­lates to Clarke as an un­li­censed money­len­der, al­leged­ly re­ceiv­ing crim­i­nal prop­er­ty in the form of a tele­vi­sion val­ued at $2,000, which rep­re­sent­ed an in­ter­est pay­ment on a loan he gave to a man. 

That of­fence is al­leged to have oc­curred be­tween May 2019 and Feb­ru­ary 8, this year. 

Clarke, a mem­ber of the De­fence Force, was ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice raid­ed his home, which al­so serves as DSS’s of­fice, last Sat­ur­day. 

Last Sep­tem­ber, of­fi­cers of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch raid­ed the lo­ca­tion and seized close to $22 mil­lion. The mon­ey was al­leged­ly re­turned by po­lice with­out the knowl­edge of in­ves­ti­ga­tors.  

Dur­ing a sec­ond raid, $7.7 mil­lion was seized. DSS’s op­er­a­tions were put on hold af­ter po­lice ob­tained an or­der to de­tain the mon­ey pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

Clarke, who has re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing, has promised to ho­n­our his debts un­der the DSS when the seized mon­ey is re­leased to him. 

Clarke’s le­gal team is be­ing led by Se­nior Coun­sel Sophia Chote. He is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Feb­ru­ary 18.